Wedding Blues

Director Susanne Bier's After the Wedding is composed of those seeming coincidences and abject manipulations that typify both melodrama and Dogme.

by Cindy Fuchs

At first look, Jacob (Mads Mikkelsen) appears dedicated to the orphanage he runs in Mumbai. He spends his days teaching youngsters to speak English or playing football with them in the dirt courtyard. His lanky, sunburned figure outstanding among his very short, energetic, brown-skinned charges, Jacob is fiercely focused on ensuring that the children have food to eat and books to read. Within minutes of the start of After the Wedding (Efter brylluppet), Jacob must seek financing back in Copenhagen. He hates to leave the kids, even for a short time, especially 8-year-old Pramod (Neeral Mulchandani), whom he's informally adopted.

As soon as he assures Pramod he'll return, the boy disbelieves him. And so do you: It's one of those movie promises fated to be broken, a dramatic contrivance that exposes both Jacob's profligate past and the plot's inelegance. That's not to say that the movie isn't frequently absorbing, or that its probing at the complicated effects of privilege, entitlement and arrogance isn't worthy. It is to say that the essential elements are too familiar and often soapy, as Jacob is caught between his devotion to Pramod and his discovery of another obligation, left over from his previous life.

In Denmark, he confronts precisely the sorts of "idiots" he'd left behind years ago, including his ex, Helene (Sidse Babett Knudsen), currently married to Jacob's potential financier, Jorgen (Rolf Lassgard). Nearly as soon as he arrives in town, he's invited to the wedding of Jorgen's daughter, the lovely, trusting Anna (Stine Fischer Christensen). "After the wedding," all heck breaks loose, as past secrets are revealed and relationships rearranged.

Director Susanne Bier's movie is composed of those seeming coincidences and abject manipulations that typify both melodrama and Dogme (she's a former adherent), collapsing emotional and political revelations into earnest displays of pain. As much as plump Jorgen insists he holds nothing against the bracingly handsome Jacob, the tensions among all the players in this melodramatic setup quickly come to the surface, with the camera resolutely close on teary or angry faces, and lots of eyes — pained, confused, beseeching. The very frequency of these close-ups detracts from their effectiveness, highlighting the film's tendency to overstate. Helene, caught like Jacob between lives, spends much of the film trying to explicate choices that now look wrong. In case you don't get this, the film underlines: Nearly every wall in their massive home is adorned with stuffed animal heads.

(c_fuchs@citypaper.net)

After the Wedding (Efter brylluppet)

Directed by Susanne Bier

An IFC Films release